Federalism, mandates, and devolution

An unfunded mandate is "a National standard or program imposed on state and local governments by the federal government without accompanying funding or reimbursement." Unfunded mandates became such a big problem in the early 90's that the Republican congress in 1994 created a new law called the unfunded mandates reform act (UMRA). Essentially, this law stopped all mandates that cost the state over 50 million dollars.Devolution on the other hand, is the practice of "delegating to the states more and more authority over a range of policies that had held up under national government authority, plus providing states with a significant potion of the cost." Therefore a a program is removed from a higher source of government to a lower portion. Personally, I feel as if devolution is more effective in reducing unfunded mandates. As the text illustrates, devolution allows individual states to try and see what works for them. So what might not be good for Tennessee might work out fine for California. So in this type of way devolution allows for more ability to change policies to see what system is right.